The link is not 100% but two hunters eating from the same deer population and falling ill at around the same time is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence.

We are essentially one mutation away from this spreading between humans and that would be very, very bad.

    • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      8 months ago

      True that it’s not a virus but prions can mutate in the sense that they are just proteins like any other, produced according to their genes. The gene coding for the prion protein can mutate, producing a prion that is better at making, e.g., the human analog fold into a prion.

      • BigHaas [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        They aren’t produced according the their genes. They don’t affect DNA like viruses do. They are a removed lower energy configuration of a protein. When the removed protein bumps into a healthy form of itself, the forces between the molecules pull the healthy protein into the prion shape. Then they go their separate ways, exponentially eating holes through tissues.

        The protein targeted by CWD is different in cervids, it has like an extra loop that is important for its function. So if a CWD prion bumps into the human version of the protein, nothing happens. But, if some weird interaction allowed it to actually work, it’s feasible a human prion could be created.

        • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          8 months ago

          Prions are just proteins that can fold in a way that self-propagates by causing other instances of the same (or very similar) protein to also misfold the same way. This is how they cause infectious disease. The downstream impacts vary because it depends on what the misfolded protein actually does in addition to helping other instances misfold. Most often it just accumulates, avoiding destruction by the cell’s usual mechanisms of destroying misfolded proteins (most prions that can’t avoid this would be destroyed before we could even notice their existence). But even just accumulating a bunch of a prion can be devastating, as their mass can be disruptive and the actual functional amount of the normally folded protein becomes effectively nil.

          But like all proteins, they are indeed still produced according to their genes. Proteins are generated through the transcription and translation processes.

  • coeliacmccarthy [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    Prions are the best candidate IMO for a near-to-medium-term human extinction event. If a bad one gets a foothold then median human life expectancy will be like 12 years within a century or two and there’ll be nothing to be done about it

    You should probably be scareder of CWD and similar diseases TBQH IMHO PBJ

  • Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    It’s everywhere by now, isn’t it? When the containment of a new disease is precarious like this, I usually assume the worst has already happened. The people in charge just aren’t aware of it yet. If they are, they still don’t want to tell the public out of fear of how destabilizing such news could be to the whole system.

    • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      8 months ago

      The maps of affected wild herds only shows a few states, but I’ve seen deer here in NJ as far back as a decade ago that very much looked like they were sick with CWD. I wouldn’t doubt that it’s more widespread than we are aware of.

      • Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        With so many possibilities of deer and cattle coming into contact in rural settings, I especially worry about my relatives that have cattle and occasionally hunt. I guess my mother had a point about never wanting to try any venison that they cooked.

    • nephs@lemmygrad.ml
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      8 months ago

      Putting it out of its misery and not wasting what could be good venison meat?

      Sounds more merciful than shooting a young healthy animal.

      But I don’t know, I don’t hunt.

      • Amerikan Pharaoh@lemmygrad.ml
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        8 months ago

        If the poor thing’s visibly suffering from CWD, it absolutely is not good meat. When I was living in the sticks, I didn’t know a single subsistence hunter who’d eat a visibly-diseased buck-- the sport hunters might’ve still gone after them, but I don’t tolerate sport hunters in my physical locality, so I don’t talk to them.

  • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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    8 months ago

    I lived in England in the 80s and I’m always terrified that I will find out I have vCJD. It’s believed that symptoms can take decades to show.